Masterfully crafted; artistic, poetic, subtle; strong performances; discomforting and affecting
Disadvantages:
Slightly implausible dilemmas; average score; uneven at times; somehow dislikable
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Language is one of the limits of our world. It prevents human beings from truly expressing themselves, whether it be in a foreign tongue or one's own mother tongue. In many ways this is a disastrous handicap, and Alejandro Gonzalez Innarritu emphasises this in his epic film Babel, highlighting how in matters of emergency, language can potentially lead to catastrophe. In a world where everyone is split by cultural and racial divides, Babel -- the third film out of Innarritu's loosely linked trilogy -- is a highly sensitive and relevant picture.
Spanning three continents, Babel tells the story of various groups of entirely different people and how, with the limitations of language and the prejudices of others, they must cope with personal disaster. In Morrocco, two brothers take their father's recently purchased rifle and accidentally shoot at a bus full of American tourists, severely wounding a woman. Her husband, panicking and distraught, struggles desperately to get medical assistance in an isolated rural village. Meanwhile, in America, the children of the grief-stricken couple are illegally taken to the wedding of their nanny's son in Mexico. Across the Pacific, in Japan, a girl, deaf and mute, tries to cope with discovering her feminity in a society where she is an outcast. The complex and non-linear plot is linked, in some areas more tightly than others, but nonetheless, as the film progresses, the viewer starts to establish the links between these characters who are a far cry from one another. Innarritu defines the difference between his protagonists particularly via the use of the diverse range of languages, never letting any language (namely English) become dominant. Babel is about the breakdown in communication as a result of language, and Innarritu throws at his audience alien sights and sounds to make the viewer feel as isolated as the characters.
Indeed, Babel superbly captures the ambience and feel of the cultures, ranging from the simplicity of rural life in Morrocco to the modernistic minimalism of Japan. The values of the cultures are made apparent, but the beauty of Babel is that it never shoves it in the face of the viewer, it is always subtle yet entirely explicit. The Mexican nanny treasures family, and is desperate enough to take the pampered American children across the border. The Americans are naive to the ways of other cultures. The Morroccans have sturdy values of pride. The Japanese are distant and detached from the rest of the world, and indeed, the disabled girl. All of these values are compromised and abused in the dilemmas that Babel creates, ultimately creating something very powerful and often very discomforting. In Morrocco, the viewer truly feels the naivety of the tourists, the countryside and the people so alien, just as when we see the tourists from the perspective of the Morroccans, they are also alien and somehow crass. But Innarritu constantly keeps the viewer impartial, never lending their perspective specifically to one culture, instead forever interchanging.
But Babel is not without problems. For one thing, the butterfly effect idea that Innarritu goes for, that one small event can create a huge one, can make the links between the storylines quite tenuous, but the film is not so much about this as it is about its central theme of breakdown in communication amongst its characters. But the dilemmas that the characters endure are ones where Innarritu has taken artistic liberty, because they are not everyday events, as they are very drastic and unusual. We can relate to the emotions of the characters, but we can not particularly relate to the situation from anything other than a moralistic perspective. A film that would be compared to Babel is Paul Haggis' Crash, a film that focuses on racial hatred and prejudices in L.A from an everyday perspective. Whilst Crash may be more realistic in the type of occurrences it chooses, it's completely unsubtle of its delivery of its themes, thrusting the wrongs of racial hatred in the viewer's face. Babel is the opposite; unrealistic circumstances, but far more subtle and powerful. Both films juxtapose each other in this sense. But also, Babel is by no means light viewing. At times, with its unrelenting raw psychology and imagery, it resembles films like Schindler's List; powerful, poetic, beautiful but by no means enjoyable or entertaining. The first half, wherein we are trying to accustom ourselves to the diverse cultures and characters, the viewer feels very disoriented and uncomfortable at times. This is probably a good thing, as the film succeeds in crawling beneath the skin with moments that made me writhe with their raw intensity. It's such an atmospheric and sensual film, that it's difficult not to be affected by it, the alien surroundings as affecting for us as they are for the characters.
Innarritu's direction itself is superb, even if the film proves too much for some. The story is entirely non-linear and the plots are very distinct, but the film never loses it touch, or forgets about any of the characters. Not only does he capture the cultures and the imagery exceedingly well, but the ways in which he puts the viewer into the shoes of the characters is masterful. For example, there are many moments where the viewer sees things from the perspective of the deaf girl, one scene in particular where she goes into a pulsating, intense club, but Innarritu removes all sound so that we can only hear the sound of silence, and it takes so much from the circumstances that one really feels like how it is to be this girl. Similarly, the editing is sporadic and gritty, intensifying the moments which are shot with a tight attention to detail for imagery, and one can see that Innarritu has an eye for the artistic. The score by Gustavo Santaolalla, however, is little more than ambient and does little to particularly enhance the mood. It weaves in relatively well with the atmosphere, but sadly rarely adds any extra power to this very intense film.
The failings of the score can hardly matter though when the acting is of such a high quality. Brad Pitt is excellent as the grieving husband who is trying to keep a cool head but is slowly melting away, whilst Cate Blanchett ably supports him. But the rest of the cast add true weight and power to Babel. Garcia Gael Bernal gives foul-mouthed and twitchy support to Adriana Barraza's superbly realised maternal nanny, a performance which is matched by the brilliantly disturbing Rinko Kikuchi as the tragic deaf girl. What is rare in a film, however, is that the performances of the children are as good as they are, the two Morroccan boys entirely convincing and ultimately touching as the guilty perpetrators of the shooting that sparks off a minor international crisis. The actors excel in their portrayal of what human beings are; lustful, disturbed, ignorant, ungrateful and impatient, a quality of the film that detracts one's attention from the fact that the links between the storylines can be somewhat tenuous at times.
Babel is a film that is profound and insightful into both human beings and cultures, skilled in how it presents the actions of the characters as something one can emphasise with but not justify. Innarritu's direction and scope is epic, especially after the small projects of Amores Perros and 21 Grams, but the events he portrays, whilst powerful, are difficult to relate to so combined with the grit of the acting and script, Babel is quite an uneven film that proves itself to be simultaneously poetic, frightening, intense and dislikable but nonetheless a superbly crafted piece of cinema.
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Soundtrack
Average
How does it compare to others by the same director?
Good
Value for Money
Good
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Film only
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